But when his doctor wife died a few years into his retirement, he sought company with prostitutes and ended up on the wrong side of the law. His solicitor Leigh Wright said: “He was vulnerable in a way. He has been enmeshed in their life and it has involved him in something he now regrets.”

Murty had decided to get the trio off drugs and spent his RAF pension and other money on them.

Mr Wright said the prostitute Murty supplied had been in hospital before January and had been suicidal. She had been getting drugs from a man who was abusing her and she was desperate for the drug.

“She was texting him for a number of hours and number of days – ‘I need something. Can you get me something?’”

He feared she would go back to her earlier source and that could lead her back into a “spiral of personal abuse” and possibly her death.

“He couldn’t live with that and that is what drove him to commit this offence,” said the solicitor.

Murty, of Foxwood Lane, York, pleaded guilty to supplying 0.4g of heroin on January 4 and was given a 12-month community order with 60 hours’ unpaid work and ordered to pay £85 prosecution costs.

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Steve Ovenden, prosecuting, said Murty formed relationships with three drug-addicted prostitutes and was arrested following a police investigation into “numerous matters” that were not taken further.

Mr Wright said Murty was applying to go back in the RAF Reserve so he could fill his days with work.

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